With Love From Ma Maguire (48 page)

In the kitchen, she found the cook, Perkins and Emmie deep in grief, the two women sobbing at the table, the man sitting on the floor in front of the open fire, his arms wrapped around Klaus, the black labrador which had been Mrs Swainbank’s pet for many a year. The dog raised his soft muzzle and whined pitifully. ‘He knows,’ said Perkins sadly.

‘They always do.’ The nurse crossed the room and stroked black satin ears. ‘You’ll have to look after your master now,’ she said to the unhappy animal before turning to observe the three servants. ‘Listen to me, all of you. I know I’ve not been here long and you might think I’m talking out of turn, but he’s in a bad way up there. I don’t want to cause any more upset, but I believe you ought to know he’s not thinking straight.’

‘How do you mean?’ Mrs Marshall made an attempt to dry her streaming eyes on her sleeve.

‘Well, planning for the future one minute, carrying on with the next breath as if there is no tomorrow. He might just damage himself, try to . . . oh, you know what I’m talking about. He’s lost all his loved ones – it’s unhinged him. Now, I realise I’m the nurse, but I can’t keep my eyes open all the time. We shall have to work shifts. So I suggest you all pull yourselves together and help me, otherwise we might well lose what’s left of this family.’

‘No!’ Emmie jumped up from the table. ‘Will I go to him now, Nurse?’

‘Yes. Take him some cocoa and a biscuit – he’s had nothing solid since about Thursday.’ She fell wearily into a chair. ‘This is one of my days for wondering about God. I mean, what can I do for Mr Swainbank after the things heaven’s allowed to happen? And why did this family arrive at all that trouble – two boys and a lovely lady snuffed out in a matter of weeks? People think I’m hard because I’m a nurse and I see things – but oh no, that’s not the case. It gets to me! It does!’ She hugged herself and began to rock back and forth, her own tears dangerously close. ‘It was the boys that finished her, Mrs Marshall. She might have gone on without too much pain if—’

‘Nay lass.’ Mrs M dashed round the table, her own sorrow set aside for the moment. ‘Her would have died anyroad, love, with or without her lads and with or without a nurse. Well away before you ever came near, she was, ’cos I watched her fading with me own eyes! Don’t take on! There were nowt in this world you could have done, girl, nowt this side of a miracle!’

‘I feel so . . . useless!’

Perkins leapt up and came to the table, throwing a heavy arm around the nurse’s trembling shoulders. ‘What’s thy name, lass?’

‘Caroline – Carrie for short.’

‘Well look here, Carrie for short, we shall “Carrie” thee out next news if we’re not careful. You don’t look so good yourself. Aye, it’s right enough, we did cod ourselves as you’d be used to watching pain without it bothering you. You should have come to us before, love. Not a one of us here would have turned a back on a worker in this house. Now, you just listen to me. Will you be stopping on?’

‘I’m not sure. He’s for putting me in the mills as welfare – says I can live here if I like – but he might not be talking sense—’

‘Yes he is, ’cos he’s mentioned it to me before this, asked me and Mrs M here our opinion of you, like. You live at Briars if you want. There’s none of us has family apart from one another. Mrs M’s never married, gets called Missus on account of her job. Me and Emmie – we’re on our own too, so we stick together – safety in numbers. And him upstairs is no bad master. You could do a lot worse than throw in with us.’

‘Thank you. I’ll stay if he asks me again. I’d like to settle and I’ve no home apart from a couple of rooms in Bradford Street.’

Mrs Marshall poured a large drink and pushed the glass into the nurse’s tense hands. ‘Put yourself outside of that, lovey. It’s only cooking, but it’ll take the sharp edges off. We mun stick together from now on. Emmie can do the first shift while midnight, then I’ll take over. Jacob here will sit with him in the morning, give you a rest up to dinner. Nay lass, we’ll not let our master go, not without a damn good fight . . .’

And so it continued until well after the funeral, the four of them dogging Charles Swainbank’s every step as he made his uncertain way through a second bereavement while the first had not yet served its time. Rules in the house slackened; at first, the master took his meals on a tray in the study because the isolation of the dining room was too chilling to bear. Most weekends and evenings he spent walking with Klaus and Perkins, pacing through his mourning in companionable silence with servant and dog.

Then, one unseasonably cold Sunday, Charles announced his intention to dine in the kitchen, nominally to save fuel, actually to escape from solitude and the negative thoughts that plagued lonely moments. So began the gradual erosion of that fine divide between the residents of Briars Hall and while Charles remained indisputable master, an enduring comradeship was born between the five of them, often extending to daily workers who ceased to express their surprise on finding Mr Swainbank doing his accounts by the kitchen fire when they arrived for a tea-break.

After his return to full-time work, Charles came home in the evenings and read the Bolton papers while Mrs M bustled around him with pots and pans, while Jacob Perkins cleaned silver and polished shoes, while Emmie chattered on about the latest film or a new kind of lipstick. As the weeks passed, Charles Swainbank remembered his dead boy’s wisdom, learned for himself that there was, at the end of a day, no division between peoples, that master and servant could sit at the one table, that crossing the invisible line had proved, for himself at least, not only painless but also necessary.

He taught his companions bridge and chess, discovering an agility of minds that had previously been unlooked for, unnoticed. From Perkins he learned to play a vicious hand of poker, while many of his spare coins were lost in games of pontoon and find-the-lady. As long as he lived, he would never forget the four people who had dragged him out of the mire and back on to the safety of firm ground.

As Nurse Fishwick had predicted, reasons for continuing began to arrive. He bought most of Delia Street, paying old Leatherbarrow a price that left the man gaping. After studying plans, he sent in a workforce to renew plumbing, wire the houses for electricity, treat walls and roofs against the eternal damp and decorate the homes to a high standard. He consulted lawyers and accountants, moved tenants from the two shops on Bradshawgate, found them decent premises elsewhere, then had the shops cleared and cleaned in preparation for the twins.

Nurse Fishwick was duly installed as Medical and Welfare with number one mill as her base. After a while she was accepted, though at first she was treated like a spy – something to do with time and motion – because she lived at the big house. While she practised what she called her ‘union smile’, Charles spent many an hour crawling on hands and knees over oily floorboards, measuring every inch of numbers one and two, trying to work out how to keep up profits while installing machines with safer space between them. He was aware of cutting a comical figure, especially after hearing on the stairs, ‘Did tha see yon Charlie afore? All mucked up like a bloody greaser he were. Tell thee summat, Jack. Them there ’ighborns is too inbred, it gets ter t’ brain at t’ finish.’ But he didn’t care. Even if he had been ‘daft in th’ ’ead’, the Bolton folk would have forgiven him. They were straight, unnervingly direct, but very warm. Had he noticed that before? Probably . . .

Thus Charles’s life, while empty in a personal sense, became meaningful once more. The truest meaning though was his interest in the Maguire family whose progress he monitored daily. It was a brave attempt they were making, an assault on a buying public set in its ways and still suffering financial depression. But whoever had dreamed up this audacious concept had imagination and an eye to a better future, that much was plain, for the shops even before they opened displayed a vigour that attracted comment from many quarters. In his bones, Charles felt that an old head had birthed this idea, that Ma Maguire was its true inventor. Three shops in one, three different businesses under one management – the novelty and daring amused him. And because of its uniqueness, the venture would probably succeed.

Behind the scenes, Charles orchestrated many a miracle, greasing the odd palm, bending the ears of the influential to make the way easier for the Maguires, smoothing out legalities and licences whenever it looked as if the path might roughen. Each day he drove past the site, watching as workmen carried in shelving or chairs and tables, supervising from afar while painters brightened the weather-stained exterior. But even he was ill-prepared when the big day arrived, for the sign was so commanding that it shortened the most nonchalant breath. A bright emerald-green rectangle was erected above the three doorways and the signwriter worked painstakingly in black and gold for several days before the message became fully plain.

MAGUIRES’ MARKET was printed out in high-case copperplate, while underneath, in smaller lettering, the building’s new purpose was explained.

Enjoy our Irish kitchen (Ma Maguire’s famous herbal teas and remedies also available)

Hand-trimmed clothing – wools and cottons – patterns and yarns

New and secondhand bicycles – also repairs and maintenance

Charles closed the door of his car and grinned widely. Ah, she had the right idea – get them in for a bowl of stew, let the ladies browse through hats and trimmings while the men and boys studied bikes. And if the stew didn’t suit their digestion, a remedy would be on hand! He found himself laughing aloud as he drove away. Why, if the old girl stayed alive long enough, there’d be Maguires’ Markets from here to Timbuctoo!

He made his way back to number one. For the first time ever, he would be there to interview the new intake, trainees straight from school, the workers of the future. The manager had been shocked at this intention, believing that his own abilities were being questioned, but Charles had pacified the man by explaining that Nurse Fishwick needed some interview experience and that Charles himself wished to supervise her induction.

The real reason for Charles’ sudden interest in these school-leavers was invested in a single name halfway down the list, one Janet Maguire who had submitted an application for a weaver’s apprenticeship. Yes, he wanted to meet the little madam who had obviously turned down the chance to work in her own family business. There was going to be more to this one than just a pretty face, he suspected.

He was right. When summoned, she stepped into the office with a firm stride, gloved hands folded neatly at her waist, head held high, eyes making bold contact each time she was addressed. Nurse Fishwick filled out the standard questionnaire with its endless enquiries about health and family situation, then Charles dismissed her to her own office, using as excuse the fact that several absentees had not been accounted for on that day.

He faced this new grown-up daughter and his heart nearly burst when he saw those straight Swainbank brows above a pair of smoke-grey eyes that were almost too beautiful to describe. He cleared his throat nervously. ‘What do you know about cotton then, Miss . . . Maguire? Did you learn anything at school?’

‘A bit. Only I’ve read more in books out of the library. I think it’s . . . well . . . really funny. Not for laughing at, I don’t mean that. But it’s like a story, isn’t it? You get a plant grown hundreds and thousands of miles away, pile it on a boat, sail it halfway round the world, then we make cloth of it.’

He was suddenly smiling. ‘Yes, if you put it that way, I suppose it must seem a bit odd.’

‘I think it’s unbelievable. I mean, if it wasn’t actually happening here in Bolton, you’d think somebody had made it all up! Course, it’s been round donkey’s years, long before we got hold of it. When we first did, it was called vegetable wool ’cos they’d all been used to getting their clothes off sheep.’ She leaned forward, clearly warming to a favourite subject. ‘Anyroad, this here Roman feller called Pliny – I think he was one of their poshknobs – he decided that cotton pods looked a bit like quince. That’s a fruit. Have you ever ate one?’

‘No.’

‘Well it is a fruit, it was in the book. Now the Latin for quince is cotoneum, so cotton could have got its name there. Only I found out it’s likely Arabic, k-o-t-o-n what sounded something like gooten. It’s dead interesting, though.’

It was in her blood! From both sides she’d got it, from himself genetically, also from the experience of being reared by a cotton family. Though the interest she’d taken in research could only have come from him, he told himself somewhat smugly. No ordinary girl would know so much about the industry and its history.

‘Am I talking too much?’ she was asking now. ‘I get in bother over that off me mam.’

‘Do you?’

‘Oh aye. She reckons I have more to say than the BBC Home Service.’

‘And you want to be a weaver?’

‘Yes. My granny’s a weaver – a good one too.’

‘You’ll not be able to talk in a weaving shed, Janet. It’s too noisy and far too busy.’

‘I know. I’ll have to shut up and learn to lip-read.’

Charles moved a few papers on the desk and placed his elbows on its surface while he studied this personable young woman. ‘I believe your family is about to open a shop in the town centre. Have you no inclination to work there?’

She sucked in her cheeks while considering the reply to this. ‘I don’t want to sell things – I’d sooner make them. I thought if I learned enough about different cloths, I could happen make some dresses and that for the shop in me spare time, but for full-time, I’d rather come in the mill. I . . . I don’t really want to work with our Joey . . .’

‘I see. Do you mind if I ask why?’

‘Well, Mr . . . er . . . er . . . what did you say your name was?’

‘Swainbank.’

She swallowed. ‘You mean . . . you’re the boss? Ooh, I never thought—’